Composed of 14 national experts on topics related to cognitive health and aging, the committee is charged with conducting a study to examine these issues and make recommendations focused on public health aspects of cognitive aging. The study’s focus will be on identifying efforts needed to better understand the public health implications of cognitive aging and its risk and preventive factors as well as the development of relevant surveillance and monitoring tools, and methodologies.

Fick is co-director of the Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence at Penn State. Her research focuses on improving detection and management of delirium superimposed on dementia in older adults and inappropriate medication use. She is principal investigator (PI) and multi-PI on two National Institutes of Health–funded multisite randomized clinical trials to decrease the severity and duration of delirium and improve nurse detection and management of delirium superimposed on dementia. Fick is board certified as a geriatric clinical nurse specialist by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the Gerontological Society of America. She serves as editor of the Journal of Gerontological Nursing.

Part of the U.S. National Academies, the IOM provides independent advice on issues relating to biomedical science, medicine and health. Its aim is to help those in government and the private sector make informed decisions by providing authoritative evidence to decision makers and the public.